But thanks to comments LaHood made at a House appropriations hearing Wednesday, the problem may have gotten worse.

Well, wait a minute: Words can’t make defective pedals more defective. But when it comes to large-scale recalls of products as pervasive as cars, there’s a certain etiquette. Managing people’s anxiety about the thing that gets them — everywhere they need to go — is as important as diagnosing and fixing what might be wrong.

Here’s what he said:

My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to a Toyota dealer, ’cause they believe they have the fix for it.

And here’s a video of LaHood’s Toyota criticism from CNBC:

At a news conference after the hearing, after Toyota shares took the plunge so common to the stock market when it hears any old thing, LaHood back-pedaled (pun intended), saying his statement was “obviously a misstatement” and that he meant only to push people to their dealers if, for some reason, they weren’t taking the prospect of a stuck accelerator pedal seriously.

Let me not defend our great society as gung-ho on car maintenance. I don’t know the date on my oil change sticker, but I’m pretty sure it was hot and sunny then.

But let’s back up. The Transportation Department is pushing Toyota around on this recall. Great. The company is facing 11 class-action lawsuits over accidents allegedly involving this defect, and the prospect of a gas pedal that ignores you when you take your foot off is terrifying.

A company can be bossed around without making a mess of things other than stocks, which are in a constant state of panic anyway. But people? Who drive Toyotas? All over the country?